Author: Alyshia Goertzen

The ds106 Assignment Bank is a website that has a variety of assignments that are in different categories such as visual, audio, mashup, web, etc.

I went through the categories and assignments and picked one to show as an example. I chose the assignment called 4 lines, 5 dots, 1 curve. It’s a super easy assignment and doesn’t require any fancy programs as I used the paint program to make mine. All that is required is that you make something out of 4 lines, 5 dots, and 1 curve. Simple.

Here’s mine:

There are so many things that you can make! All that it takes is a little bit of imagination and some creativity.

I think this assignment would be good to use in the classroom for elementary years as it is easy to understand and allows the students to use their creativity and imagination. They can make as many pictures as they like as long as it follows the restrictions of how many dots, lines and curves to use. This is also an assignment that will help the students get comfortable using a computer and can be used when you have a sub!

Try making a picture of your own! See what you come up with and let me know what you made!

Alan Levine talked to us about digital storytelling for ECMP355. We were asked to explore some of the resources he provided for us.

I really liked the idea of Five Card Flickr and using it was SO easy! The idea is that you choose 5 pictures that come up randomly and you make a story out of it.

I think that this is great for in the classroom. It invites students to be imaginative and creative. Rather than explain directly what the pictures show, I would ask students to just use them as a background and to make up a story outside of the pictures, to think outside the box.

This is a resource for any grade and students can use it individually, in groups, or as a whole class. Other than an obvious creative writing assignment, I would use this as a brain break with the whole class.

I made a sample story that you can check out. I also encourage you to make one yourself!!

Last week, Amber Teamann talked to us about our online presence and how important it is to keep it positive and be a true representation of ourselves.

I definitely think that this is something that matters, especially in today’s society. Many employers will Google their potential new hires before calling for an interview. Let’s be honest, I’m sure even you have googled someone else or at least yourself at one time.

When I googled myself, I had to put quotation marks around my name so that it would search for the correct spelling of my first name. Before putting the quotation marks, the first few things that came up were me and then there were posts with variations of spelling for my first name that were not me. After the quotation marks, more of the content was actually about me.

The first thing that came up was my Twitter account, great!! The next couple things were some Facebook posts that I was tagged in and that I had wrote. Neither of them are negative, but I do wish they were further down the list. I have the same thoughts with my Pinterest pins. After that there is an interview that was done by a classmate a few years ago, but is no longer accessible. FINALLY, almost on the bottom of the first page is my blog.

I would really like to have my blog and Twitter at the top of the page when I am googled. That is one thing that I would really like to change. I have created an about.me page and a LinkedIn account. I hope that these will soon be visible when I am googled!

Symbaloo is something that I have seen briefly prior to watching Untangling the Web. I had signed up for it last semester, played around with it for a few minutes and then just left it. It just didn’t seem like it would be that good and I had no use for it at the time. Or at least so I thought. After seeing it on Steve and Adam’s site, I figured I would give it another chance.

Symbaloo is a site where you can add bookmarks to a page and it shows pictures/tiles for that bookmark. This is something that you can completely customize and you can sign in and have these bookmarks wherever you are! This is a site that you can use anytime. You have the option to make different tabs so if you want, you can have a personal tab, an educational resource tab, a teacher tab, etc.

Symbaloo would be very handy for research projects. A student can be doing research at school and then go home and pick up right where they left off because they can just bookmark the sites they were looking at.

I read Trevor Kerr’s post about Symbaloo. He suggested something that I had not really thought of when I was exploring the site. Because you have the option to share the Symbaloo pages or “mixes” of bookmarks, it can be very beneficial for younger grades.

If you make a Symbaloo mix with all of the sites that you want the students to explore, all you have to do is share the mix with them and they will have all of the sites in front of them. This will cut down the time that the students use to type in the longer URLs and give them more time to actually explore the sites, especially since time is very precious as an educator!

In ECMP355, I had the opportunity to watch a presentation called “Untangling the Web” by Adam Bellow and Steve Dembo. They showed us many tools that we can access online and use for our classroom. I really enjoyed that the walked through each tool they showed us and gave us a demonstration.

I really enjoyed Kahoot! It is a place where you can set up a quiz, discussion, or survey and make it into a game. Students can access it over a computer, ipad, or smartphone and participate.

During Adam and Steve’s presentation, it was suggested that it could be a good classroom management tool. I totally agree with this. I could have a quiz set up for when the students are coming into the classroom first thing in the morning, from a recess, lunch or whenever, and the students will have a certain amount of time they have to answer the question(s). This may help them get settled a little bit faster and while still having fun.

It seemed like a pretty easy tool to use when I was playing around on it. Because it was just me, I couldn’t get the full effect of people answering my quizzes but it still worked nonetheless.

This is a very easy online tool to use! I love the idea of posing a question to students and giving them the opportunity to post to the wall. This allows for all the students thoughts and ideas to be shared. Try out my Padlet wall and let me know what you think!

Last week, Josh Stumpenhorstwas a guest speaker for our ECMP355 class. He talked about how to use Twitter, what you could use it for, as well as using TweetDeck.

I used Twitter a bit in my last semester so I had a decent idea of how to use it. I understood the purpose of hashtags and following other people. So it was more of a refresher for me when Josh was talking about it.

What I was kind of frustrated about with Twitter was how to follow certain hashtags without having to search them individually all the time. Josh introduced TweetDeck to us *cue “ta-da” music*. This is a place where you can essentially follow hashtags and have everything organized. You can add and delete these lists whenever you want. It’s great!

I have downloaded TweetDeck to my Google Chrome and have a few hashtags that I am following. I like to follow #edchat. It’s steady with information and resources. I also follow #ecmp355 so I can see any tweets from my class. I also like to follow #elemchat as I am in elementary education. As I start using Twitter more, I am positive that I will find more hashtags to follow as well as many useful resources.

Even just seeing resources shared by people I’m following is super helpful. Katia Hildebrant retweeted a tweet about a blog post. It was related to Twitter chats. Since we have been talking about it in ECMP355, it caught my eye and I clicked on it. It’s a great postabout twitter and live chats. I suggest taking a look at it! I haven’t had the chance to participate in a live chat just yet, but I hope to do so in the near future!

There are plenty of things online that are just a click away. This is not really news to anyone.

Can’t remember the name of a song? Look it up.
Need to know that recipe for cookies? Look it up.
Feel like looking at funny cat pictures? Look it up.

This just came to mind when I was thinking about wedding planning and how/when to do it. One of my friends was bugging me the day that I got engaged and told me that I better pick up some wedding magazines/books on my way home from work. The first thing that I thought was why I would do that when I can just look it up online.

This made me think about all the resources we have readily available at our fingertips. It’s just a matter of using the resources we have in a useful way and sharing our resources for others to use.